When the announcement came a few months ago that James Cameron was considering an ‘Avatar 4, many were surprised with the grandeur of his plans. After all, what more could be said of Pandora that couldn’t be said in a trilogy? Apparently a lot more as Cameron has stated that ‘Avatar 4’ will be a prequel for the first ‘Avatar’ film.

Originally it was rumored that Cameron and company would be filming the 3 sequels back to back, but Jon Landau had put a lid on that rumor stating only ‘Avatar 2’ and ‘Avatar 3’ would be filmed in this manner. Now we know why.

In a recent interview with MTV, Cameron was asked about the fourth ‘Avatar’ film and stated that he had an idea of what the film would be about, but as of yet, had not put his thoughts in writing:

“I have an idea for a fourth. I haven’t really put pen to paper on it, but basically it goes back to the early expeditions of Pandora, and kind of what went wrong with the humans and the Na’vi and what that was like to be an explorer and living in that world.

Because when we drop in, even in the first film in ‘Avatar 1,’ as it will be known in the future, we’re dropping into a process that’s 35 years in to a whole colonization. That will complete an arc and if that leads into more, we’ll start, not imitating ‘Star Wars,’ but it’s a logical thing to do because we’ll have completed the thematic arc by the end of three. The only thing left to do is go back to see what it was like on those first expeditions and create some new characters that then become legacy characters in later films. It’s a plan.”

The idea of expanding the Avatar universe is exciting but after going through the prequel trilogy of ‘Star Wars’, it’s understandable if some fans are a bit wary of the news.

Of course before ‘Avatar 4’ can even get off the ground, ‘Avatar 2’ and ‘Avatar 3’ still needs to be filmed and at the moment, Cameron says he and his team are still “working on it.” Right now they are in the process of creating the undersea portion of Pandora where the sequels are said to take place and last reports have ‘Avatar 2’ not being released until 2015 or 2016. Until then, fans will just have to wait a little while longer to see how Pandora and the Na’vi were like before colonization took place.

For more of what Cameron said about the ‘Avatar’ series, watch the entire MTV interview below!